Savy King has returned to team training with Angel City for the first time since her collapse during a game last May.

The 20-year-old defender was present as Angel City kicked off its 2026 preseason last week.

‘I feel great. I have been really working hard, especially over the last six months or so, and especially over this offseason trying to get ready to be back to play this season,’ King told reporters in a video Angel City posted on its Instagram account.

‘I’m feeling really good. I’m in a really good place. I’m really excited about it. A lot of work to do to continue to get ready. But I’m really happy with where I’m at, and I’m feeling really good. Some may say better than ever.’

King collapsed during a game against the Utah Royals on May 9, 2025, leading to a terrifying scene on the pitch at BMO Stadium.

King was rushed to the hospital, where she underwent surgery after doctors discovered an underlying congenital heart abnormality.

“The left coronary is the most important blood vessel in your heart, and when it’s anomalous it means that it’s in a slightly different location than normal.”

Bay FC selected King with the second overall pick in the 2024 NWSL Draft. After spending her rookie season with Bay, King was traded to her hometown club Angel City in the offseason. She started every game for Angel City last year prior to her heart issue.

The defender has featured for the U.S. at various youth international levels and has been considered a future senior national team player.

King is still listed with a season-ending injury (SEI) designation on Angel City’s preseason roster. The defender would need to be activated before she is able to return in a game.

Miami quarterback Carson Beck shocked college football when he exited the NFL draft and transferred to the Hurricanes from Georgia last offseason, and it turned out to be a great move for the sixth-year signal caller.

Beck led the Hurricanes to the College Football Playoff national championship game, completing 19-of-32 passes for 232 yards and one touchdown to one interception in the 27-21 loss. That capped a season in which he completed 338-of-467 passes (72.4%) for 3,813 yards and 30 touchdowns to 12 interceptions.

But who will replace Beck, who led Miami to the national championship game against Indiana?

The Hurricanes don’t have an obvious backup to take over the reins. Emory Williams has appeared in a reserve role for three seasons, and has been passed up for a transfer portal quarterback in two consecutive seasons with Beck and former No. 1 overall pick Cam Ward.

Miami has found tons of success finding its quarterback in the portal, just like Indiana, who it faced for a national title.

Here’s a look at what the Hurricanes will do at quarterback in 2026:

Who will be Miami’s quarterback next year?

Duke QB Darian Mensah

The quarterback tied most closely to Miami is Duke’s Darian Mensah, who entered the transfer portal on Friday, Jan. 16 — the final day to enter.

Mensah was instantly linked to Miami, who still didn’t have a quarterback for 2026, on the day of his transfer. The Hurricanes had also tried to lure former Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson out of the NFL draft to transfer to Miami.

If Miami can land Mensah, who was reportedly earning $4 million annually at Duke, it would be quite the consolation prize. The first-year Duke quarterback passed for 3,973 yards with 34 touchdowns to six interceptions this season after transferring from Tulane. He ranked second nationally in passing yards and tied-for second in passing touchdowns, leading the Blue Devils to an ACC Championship Game win over Virginia.

ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported Dec. 19 that Mensah was returning to Duke for the 2026 season after briefly exploring the NFL draft. He changed his mind a few weeks later, posting a short message on X of his decision-making process.

‘I’m forever grateful for Duke and the coaching staff,’ Mensah wrote. ‘Thank you Duke family for everything. This wasn’t an easy decision, but after talking with my family, I believe it’s in my best interest to enter the transfer portal.’

Mensah is rated as the No. 18 player and No. 6 quarterback in the transfer portal, per 247Sports.

Indiana QB Alberto Mendoza

Could the Hurricanes turn to a Mendoza to lead the offense next season?

The younger brother of Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Fernando Mendoza reportedly entered the transfer portal on Tuesday, Jan. 20 — the day after the Hoosiers downed the hometown Hurricanes in the national championship game.

Mendoza’s future at Indiana was in flux ever since Curt Cignetti landed TCU quarterback Josh Hoover out of the portal. The redshirt-freshman Miami native played at Christopher Columbus High School and could be an enticing option for the Hurricanes.

Mendoza was a three-star recruit in the 2024 class coming out of high school and was rated by 247Sports’ composite rankings as the No. 84 quarterback in the class. After enrolling at Indiana in June 2024, he was joined by his older brother, who transferred in from Cal after the 2024 season and went on to become the Hoosiers’ first Heisman winner in program history.

Alberto appeared in nine games, often relieving his older brother late in lopsided wins. Across those games, he completed 18 of 24 passes for 286 yards, five touchdowns and one interception. He was a threat on the ground, too, rushing for 190 yards and a touchdown on 13 attempts.

• Curt Cignetti brought to life Indiana’s corpse of a program. In two years, he turned a doormat into royalty. Incredible, truly.
• Fernando Mendoza makes enough winning plays against Miami. That’s your Heisman winner, folks.

MIAMI GARDENS, FL — Do not allow yourself to slip into the trap of believing Curt Cignetti awakened a sleeping giant.

That’s a misnomer.

No football giant ever existed in the basketball country known as Bloomington, Indiana, before the Hoosiers hired a Yinzer old enough to retire but determined enough to achieve the unthinkable.

Cignetti brought life into Indiana’s corpse of a program.

In two years, he turned a doormat into royalty.

Buy IU championship books, newspapers, gear

This isn’t so much awakening a giant as it is transforming a zombie into a vibrant king wearing college football’s crown. In doing so, Cignetti hatched one of the most unfathomable national champions in college football history.

Indiana just achieved an undefeated season. In football.

Let that sink in.

Incredible.

Historic.

Transformative.

All of that, and more.

Before Cignetti, in the time of B.C., Indiana was a nobody.

After Cignetti, the Hoosiers are lords.

“Seeing the confetti come down,’ said Indiana’s Isaiah Jones, who scored a touchdown on a blocked punt recovery, ‘it’s surreal.’

I’m still struggling to believe it, because of Indiana’s history, but nothing about this particular season or Indiana’s postseason run felt fluky.

The Hoosiers owned this season, and they controlled this College Football Playoff, and although Miami kept counterpunching in a cardiac finish, Indiana was just a little better, a bit closer to complete, in a 27-21 triumph while cementing a perfect season.

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There will be time in the days and weeks to come to debate where this 16-0 Hoosiers team ranks among the greatest teams of all time.

No matter where you land in that debate, there should be no debating the remarkableness that Indiana, one of the sport’s meekest programs throughout most of its existence, found its way into the conversation.

NIL not only reason for Indiana success

When they try to explain this season, obvious narratives will emerge.

NIL. Transfers. Veteran roster.

Truth can be found in each of those ideas, but none of those realities should cheapen what Indiana achieved.

Indiana’s squad is seasoned, but Cignetti did not invent the concept of veterans. Miami teemed with experienced players, too, and it showed in this heavyweight finish.

Transfers fueled Indiana, undoubtedly. This feat wouldn’t have been possible without transfers. But, Cignetti did not raid blue-blooded cupboards. He built a winner with guys from James Madison and California, Maryland, and Kent State.

NIL aided the possibility of leveling the playing field, but Indiana did not pace the pack for spending, nor is this roster overflowing with former blue-chippers.

In the first four seasons of the NIL era, the national champions were Georgia, Georgia again, Michigan and Ohio State.

Not exactly a run of plucky underdogs.

Perhaps, Indiana will be at the vanguard of ex-doormat dominance, and Northwestern, Rutgers, Wake Forest and Kansas will follow in its footsteps. I sort of doubt that, don’t you?

This being a copycat industry, coaches will try to mimic Cignetti’s strokes of genius, but attempts to imitate excellence so often come up empty.

There was something special about this team. Something unbeatable.

These Hoosiers, many of them former two- and three-stars and even no-stars, jelled and developed into premier talent under Cignetti’s watch.

“It’s an emotional moment, to know what we did for Indiana,” said cornerback D’Angelo Ponds, one of Indiana’s many impact transfers.

Fernando Mendoza unleashes another Heisman moment

Indiana’s defense controlled the first half, and Jamari Sharpe sealed the win with an interception. Its offense made winning plays in the second half. The Hoosiers scored on a blocked punt. It took that kind of complete effort to fend off Miami.

Fernando Mendoza, the quarterback almost nobody wanted out of high school, wasn’t consistently at his best. Miami’s vaunted defense had much to do with that, persistently harassing and hitting the Indiana quarterback. But, Mendoza made two critical fourth-down conversions on a pivotal scoring drive. He pinballed his way into the end zone on a run that will live forever in Indiana lore.

That’s your Heisman winner, folks. The one who played high school football in the shadow of Miami’s campus. Another remarkable plot point of this inimitable story.

It’s not hyperbole to call this a once-in-a-lifetime season. You could’ve lived two lifetimes and never witnessed another Indiana season comparable to this one.

Talk to someone who’s followed the Hoosiers for longer than the past two seasons, and they could tell you about how, if you wanted to see Indiana’s stadium packed to the gills with color resembling crimson, you might need to wait until Ohio State came to town, when road fans lended an assist.

Who could blame Indiana fans if they weren’t consistently selling out the stadium for teams that finished with three, four and two wins in the three seasons before Cignetti’s arrival?

Ah, but that was the time of B.C.

Once Cignetti turned the clock into the era of A.C., Indiana fans dwarfed Alabama fans at the Rose Bowl. They turned Atlanta into South Indy in the CFP semifinals.

In this culmination played at Miami’s home stadium, the crimson and cream outnumbered the green and orange. Tucked into a crowd that included America’s president were flags with the stars and stripes and Cignetti’s face on it. Yes, Cignetti has taken a place among the heroes. He transformed a forever zombie into a first-of-its-kind giant that could not be stopped.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.

Hours away from the reveal of the 2026 Baseball Hall of Fame voting results, things are looking good for Carlos Beltrán and Andruw Jones.

Two of the greatest center fielders of the late-90s and 2000s, Beltrán and Jones are each topping the 75% threshold in early ballot voting via Ryan Thibodaux’s Baseball Hall of Fame Voting Tracker. Beltrán is in his fourth year on the ballot and got up to 70.3% of the vote, while this is Jones is in year nine, his second-to-last chance to join an elite group in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Official results will be announced at 6 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Jan. 20.

Here’s the latest early voting results:

2026 Baseball Hall of Fame vote tracker

Ryan Thibodaux’s Baseball Hall of Fame Voting Tracker is an invaluable resource and the entire baseball community is so very appreciative of the work he and his team put in.

Full Baseball Hall of Fame 2026 ballot tracker

As of 10 a.m. ET, Tuesday Jan. 20

• Carlos Beltrán: 89.6%
• Andruw Jones: 82.6%
• Chase Utley: 68.3%
• Andy Pettitte: 57.0%
• Félix Hernández: 55.7%
• Alex Rodriguez: 43.5%
• Manny Ramirez: 40.9%
• Bobby Abreu: 39.1%

Check out individual Hall of Fame ballots

Washington Spirit and U.S. women’s national team forward Ashley Hatch has announced the birth of her son Leo.

Hatch and her husband Jeff Van Buren welcomed their first child after originally announcing they were expecting last summer.

‘Leo is here and we are loving every minute with him. We could not be happier to be a family of 3. Our hearts are so full,’ Hatch said on Instagram.

Hatch most recently played in May, leaving the Spirit without their all-time leading scorer for the remainder of the 2025 season.

The 30-year-old has been one of the most consistent scorers in the NWSL since beginning her pro career in 2017. With 59 career regular-season goals, Hatch ranks fifth in the league’s history.

Hatch has 23 caps with the USWNT, earning call-ups for January camp last year and for the team’s two April friendlies against Brazil.

The striker appeared in one of the two matches against Brazil, making her first USWNT appearance since 2023.

AI-assisted summary
• The game featured numerous players and coaches with ties to Miami’s Christopher Columbus High School.
• Indiana’s Heisman-winning quarterback, Fernando Mendoza, is seen as an inspiration to younger student-athletes in Miami.
• The matchup was notable for featuring several prominent Cuban Americans, including Mendoza and Miami’s head coach.

MIAMI ― John Allen watched the college football national championship game intently, seeing a lot of himself in Indiana University’s star quarterback.

Not so much what Fernando Mendoza is able to do with the football, though Allen, a high school punter and kicker, sees some of that, too. But for nearly everything else.

Allen, 17, is a senior at Christopher Columbus High School, where Mendoza and his brother, Alberto, graduated from. Like Fernando Mendoza, he joined the Mas Family Program, Columbus’ honors track, and is a Miami Herald Silver Knight candidate. Mendoza graduated Columbus with a 5.2 grade point average, something Allen aspires to.

“It’s huge,” said Allen, who, a minority in this city, was rooting for the Hoosiers. “It makes younger kids want to work harder because they see it’s possible. It’s not just dreaming big: It’s like you’re literally watching it happen.”

Celebrate Indiana’s title with books, page prints, more

The highly-anticipated showdown between Heisman-Trophy-winner Mendoza, and the squad’s no-nonsense coach Curt Cignetti on one side, and the once-dynastic University of Miami Hurricanes on the other, led by head coach Mario Cristobal and quarterback Carson Beck, delivered in a game that stayed close all the way to the final seconds. 

For months leading up to the Jan. 19 game, the intertwined storylines marveled college football fandom. Mendoza and younger brother Alberto, his backup QB at Indiana, both graduated from Christopher Columbus High School in Miami – where Cristobal, Offensive Line Coach Alex Mirabal and several Miami players also attended.

Cristobal played football there in the 1980s with Fernando and Alberto’s father, Fernando Mendoza IV.

‘The game itself was always a win. It was a great Miami storyline,’ Fernando Mendoza IV told USA TODAY on the field, after the game. ‘Players and coaches from the same community playing together.’

The matchup also featured multiple Cuban Americans – the Mendozas, Cristobal, Mirabal and Miami offensive lineman Ryan Rodriguez – in a rare top-billing for a major college football game.

Allen relished the outcome. 

But the final score hardly mattered.

Miami at a standstill, watching National Championship

Across Miami – and particularly in the heavily Cuban-populated neighborhood of Westchester, where the Mendozas went to high school – youngsters pulled on crimson T-shirts and rooted for the Mendoza-led Hoosiers, signaling his growing influence among young players and non-athletes alike.

At an outdoor watch party at Columbus High School, a jumbotron screen blared the game as students, families and alumni sprawled on blankets on the football field to watch.

Manny Lopez, 16, proudly wore a crimson “INDIANA” T-shirt. He said relatives have attended Indiana University for years, creating a family tradition of studying in Bloomington. Those family members alerted Lopez to Mendoza after the quarterback won the Heisman Trophy in November, becoming the first Cuban-American to do so.

Asked what he admired about Mendoza, Lopez didn’t name any of his athletic or scholastic achievements.

“Mainly, I like his focus,” said Lopez, who is on the school’s water polo team, “how he keeps up with school, sports, his family, his faith – all of it.”

He added: “It really inspires me.”

Also attending the watch party was Robert Lewis, 27, a counselor at Columbus. He wore a maroon “MENDOZA MANIA” sweater. He was there with his mom, Maty Lewis, 55, who donned a green Miami Hurricanes sweater – and a white Hoosiers cap.

Born and raised in Miami, Maty Lewis said she is a longtime Canes fan but also respects the way Mendoza has raised money and awareness for her mom’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and is vocal about his faith and devotion to God.

“He’s just a great kid,” she said, her eyes misting. “We’re all winners tonight.”

Mendoza inspires next generation of high school football players

Mendoza has made inspiring others – especially younger student athletes – a cornerstone of his speeches and post-game talks. After winning the Heisman, Mendoza thanked his family, God, coaches and his teammates before turning his attention to kids growing up with similar dreams.

‘This is an important one, I want every kid out there who feels overlooked and underestimated, I was you. I was that kid too, I was in your shoes,” said Mendoza, who was a two-star recruit out of high school and was overlooked by many Division 1 football schools. “The truth is, you don’t need the most stars, hype or rankings, you just need discipline, heart and people who believe in you and your own abilities. I hope this moment shows you that chasing your dreams are worth it no matter how big or impossible they seem.”

Florida, of course, has long been a perennial powerhouse for recruiting high school football talent. But the past two decades has seen a noticeable shift in Cuban Americans and other Latinos in South Florida becoming focused on football.

Spurred on by the past successes of the Miami Dolphins perfect 1972 season and the state’s juggernaut status appearing in every national title game until 2002, Gen Xers took to playing football in high school. By the time they had kids, they placed them into rec leagues.

Today, their kids are the young players competing for spots in Catholic and private schools all over South Florida for a chance to be among the 7.5% that will make it to the college level. Just like Mendoza once did.

Lazaro Medina, 17, a senior, plays offensive line for the Columbus football squad. Before the game, he said he hopes the University of Miami wins its sixth national title, uniting the city and uncorking a party unseen in South Florida in decades.

But if the Canes were to lose, he’d like it to be against Mendoza, he said. 

Medina won a state championship with younger brother Alberto, while he was still at Columbus. Both Mendozas have always displayed a classiness and moral fiber rare for young athletes, he said.

“If Mendoza wins, I’m fine with that,” he said.

Allen said he started following the Mendozas as an 8^th grader in middle school, when his older brother, Rowe, played with the brothers at Columbus. He followed Mendoza’s path after high school. When he transferred to Indiana to join Alberto, Allen caught nearly every Hoosiers football game.

He snuck in glimpses of Mendoza accepting the Heisman on his smartphone while attending a formal dance in November. Mendoza’s acceptance speech was awe-inspiring, he said.

A win on Jan. 19 would cap an extraordinary journey for the Columbus alum, Allen said before the game. And the victory would further inspire a legion of feet to follow in his footsteps.

“I can’t wait for his postgame speech,” Allen said.

Jervis is a national correspondent based in Austin, Texas. Follow him on X: @MrRJervis.

Olympic gold medalist Chloe Kim and Olympian and Stanley Cup champion T. J. Oshie are taking their talents to one of the biggest stages in sports: Super Bowl 60.

On Tuesday, Jan. 20, Michelob Ultra, the official beer sponsor of Team USA, released a commercial teaser, directed by ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ and ‘F1’ filmmaker Joseph Kosinski, which brings the 2026 Winter Olympic Games to the Super Bowl.

In the preview, entitled ‘The Jump’, an amateur skier named Greg is quickly traveling down the slopes while Kim and Oshie watch from afar. ‘Do it from the Ultras, Greg,’ a mysterious voice says as Greg picks up speed. ‘Holy (expletive)’, Oshie says, seemingly in awe. Kim eventually chimes in as well, adding, ‘There’s only one man who could’ve taught him that.’

Kim is a two-time Olympic gold medalist who, at 17 years old, became the youngest woman to win a snowboarding gold medal during the women’s snowboard halfpipe.

Oshie retired from the NHL in 2025 after 16 seasons, winning a Stanley Cup with the Washington Capitals in 2018. The Olympian was also part of the 2014 Team USA men’s hockey team, which competed in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

The 2026 Winter Olympics will take place from Feb. 6 to Feb. 22, 2026, in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. Super Bowl 60 is on Feb. 8, 2026, at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.